iPod New External Hard Drive. Best way to tranfer library?

[iParis]

Today I got a 640GB WD External Hard Drive.
I will be getting a new computer tomorrow.
My new computer will most likely be my primary one.
What is the best way to transfer my library?
I don't plan on individually moving the file.
I will most likely use iTunes.
Should I relocate the folder for my library to my external hard drive and then "consolidate" it?
Or should I just "export" it?

Thank you.

Merry Christmas.

 

[PSnell08]

Transferring library

Merry Christmas, iParis:

It really depends on how you plan to use the External HD.

If you plan to store all of your music on the External HD and have iTunes acknowledge it as the default location for all of your music, that's one thing.

If you plan to just use the external HD as a backup alone, while keeping all of your music on your internal HD, that's another.

Hope this helps.

 

[Nedturskakao]

First you need to export your library file in iTunes. Then mark all songs in iTunes and drag them into a folder on your external harddrive. Then open iTunes on your new computer and set iTunes to automaticly copy new songs. Then drop all the files from the external HDD into iTunes and wait until they have been copied, then click "import playlist" in iTunes, and import the library file you made in the first step!

Then all your playlists will be the same, the only "bad" thing is that all your music will have 0 playcounts.

Hope it helped.

 

[Galley]

First you need to export your library file in iTunes. Then mark all songs in iTunes and drag them into a folder on your external harddrive. Then open iTunes on your new computer and set iTunes to automaticly copy new songs. Then drop all the files from the external HDD into iTunes and wait until they have been copied, then click "import playlist" in iTunes, and import the library file you made in the first step!

Then all your playlists will be the same, the only "bad" thing is that all your music will have 0 playcounts.

Hope it helped.

That is the WRONG way to do it.

The correct way is to
1. Change the location of your library in iTunes' preferences.
2. Choose the "Consolidate Library" option File --> Library --> Consolidate Library.

That's it! iTunes will copy all of tour files to the new location. I did this a few weeks ago with 500GB and it worked flawlessly.

Tutorial

 

[bndoarn]

i'm unclear on whether you want to move your music to a new computer or to the external hard drive so here is a tutorial for both. on the tutorial for moving your library to a new computer just use the external hard drive instead of an iPod

Moving to a new computer
Moving to an external hard drive on a Mac
Moving to an external hard rive on a Windows

 

[edtorious]

Hi, I've been wanting to do this because my iTunes library in my Macbook is getting bigger and so I wanted to move my library to an external HD. The last post was helpful with the link to the 'moving to an external HD on a Mac' but I still have some questions. Will this process move all my music, movies, podcasts and most especially my iPhone apps and settings to the external HD?

And on the link that was provided on the last post, there's a final step there that says:

'After the folder has been copied, locate your original iTunes Music folder, and drag it to the Trash or Recycle Bin. Note: Don't remove the iTunes library files that may be in the same location as the iTunes Music folder. For more information about the iTunes library files, see this article.'

The one I highlighted above, what do they mean by it What is it that they don't want me to remove? Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[GermanSuplex]

Files like the .itl file. That is probably the most critical file. The others I think will just be remade if deleted, but the .itl is the one you don't want to lose.

 

[Manchester]

i'm unclear on whether you want to move your music to a new computer or to the external hard drive so here is a tutorial for both. on the tutorial for moving your library to a new computer just use the external hard drive instead of an iPod

Moving to a new computer
Moving to an external hard drive on a Mac
Moving to an external hard rive on a Windows

Brilliant links, thanks a lot

I'm after moving my library to my external HDD, and then use that for syncing in the future.

I appreciate that my media files will be transferred without any issues using the above links, however, what about contacts; bookmarks; calendar entries on an iPhone?

I don't want to lose the above, so am after reassurance please When I plug my iPhone in with the library selected in my external HDD, will my iPhone sync to my laptop my contacts etc? And can I chose where my contacts will be stored in outlook (rather than the root of my outlook contacts, select a sub contact folder?).

Sorry for jumping on the thread and the 20 questions by the way